Moxie (2021)
“Can I help you?” – Lucy.
“I don’t know. Can you?” – Mitchell Wilson.
Moxie (2021)
Directed by: Amy Poehler
Written by: Jennifer Mathieu (based on the novel by), Tamara Chestnut & Dylan Meyer (screenplay by)
Starring: Hadley Robinson, Lauren Tsai, Alycia Pascual-Pena, Nico Hiraga, Patrick Schwarzenegger
Another Netflix coming-of-age movie, this time it’s an adaptation of Jennifer Mathieu’s novel Moxie. I watched this as soon as it came out, based purely on the fact that Amy Poehler directed it (as she’s a very very funny woman and I’ve loved anything she’s involved with). I had no idea what the plot was, and hadn’t watched a trailer. And….I really liked it. At the heart of it, Moxie is a story of female empowerment, using a high school backdrop to expose and highlight the sort of casual douchebag male self-entitlement epitomised by the quote above. As with any movie navigating such a ‘woke’ social concept, the reviews for Moxie were quite Poehler-ising (a-thankyou), with some championing the content and others criticising the feminist symbolism.
The film focuses on Vivian (Robinson), a shy sixteen year old who becomes fed up with the sexist and toxic environment at her high school. Inspired by her mother Lisa’s (Poehler) rebellious youth, she anonymously publishes and distributes a magazine entitled ‘Moxie’, intended to provide a voice for those who wish to speak up. This sparks a school-wide revolution, with Vivian and friends Claudia (Tsai), Lucy (Pascual-Pena), and crush Seth (Hiranga) battling Principal Shelly (Marcia Gay Harden) and the school’s golden boy Mitchell Wilson (Schwarzenegger – Arnie’s son!).
If this plot sounds a bit cartoony, that’s because it kind of is. It's a high school coming of age comedy movie after all, with a hero (Vivian), a villain (Mitchell), and a very obvious complication (the high school culture) and solution (start ‘Moxie’ and speak out against abuse). It also features other classic high-school movie tropes like the embarrassing mum, the high school romance, best friends forever, and a high school dance. So nothing groundbreaking in the format of the film. However, the story is a LOT more layered and a lot deeper than this. Below the jokes and colourful high school façade is an attempt to unpack social injustices, bullying, and the normalisation of what sociological doctors refer to as ‘gender micro aggressions’. To put this into context, early in the film Mitch decides to intimidate and harass newcomer Lucy. When Vivian brushes this off as him being “annoying”, Lucy rightfully corrects her and says, “You know that annoying can be more than just annoying right? He’s dangerous.” Essentially, the movie is trying to highlight the excuses and double standards society often makes for men – i.e ‘it’s just boys being boys’ – and how toxic this can be for new generations that grow up with these standards.
Now, this isn’t to say the movie is just a massive ‘fuck you’ to men. All the male characters aren't just represented as misogynistic predators. Instead, the range of male representation is much more broad, and hopefully more representative of the kaleidoscope of men everyone will encounter in the real world. There are aggressive sexist bullies such as Mitchell Wilson, but then there are also characters like Mr Davies (played by the brilliant Ike Barinholtz), a mid-thirties schoolteacher who isn’t overtly sexist but is too scared to publicly take a stance against it, Lisa’s boyfriend John, who is trying his hardest to relate with the new generation and new social standards, and Vivian’s high school crush Seth, who is probably one of the better written characters in the film. He’s a fun-loving skater who is fully supportive of the Moxie movement and equality, but is also confident enough with his own morals that he is able to discuss the topic without being bullied or ridiculed by a gradually radicalised Vivian. Also as a side-note, the actor who plays Seth (Nico Hiraga), who you might recognise from a small role in ‘Booksmart’, is an absolute weapon on a skateboard in real life and based on interviews I’ve seen and his Instagram, is incredibly similar to Seth in real life – what a dreamboat. Through this range of characters, the film does a good job at analysing the different ways men react to and empathise with the idea of equality, and Seth’s character in particular highlights the fact that you don’t have to be a woman to be a feminist.
One of the other major achievements of the film is it doesn’t just portray feminism as a simple movement with a basic set of rules. No one characters’ views of feminism in the film are identical, with Vivian having to navigate this new world and her evolving stance on the topic throughout the film. This leads to confrontations with her mum, her best friend, and her boyfriend – which are all important scenes that hammer home how different the idealisation of ‘equality’, and how we get there, are to different people. It's not a simple topic or an easy fix, and the film does a good job of reinforcing that. As Vivian’s mum states “Me and my friends protested everything. We made a tonne of mistakes.”
I’ve really just touched the surface here, but the film goes into other really big-issue topics such as bullying as well – with a particularly great scene where Lucy tells Principal Shelly that she is being harassed and the Principal instead insisting that she should say she is being “bothered” in order to avoid the paperwork. There’s a lot of quick scenes like this that the viewer will be able to empathise with, as the film hammers home how programmed we are in society to ‘suck it up’ and ‘stop causing trouble’ – whereas in reality ignoring what seem like small issues at the time will inevitably lead to irreversible problems in the longer term (this is proven to be especially true at the end of the film).
Now, enough of analysing the ‘serious’ themes at the heart of the film. What else can I say about the movie? Were there things they did wrong? Sure. If you go and check out IMDb for example, there are about a million one star reviews. Most of these are sexist dickheads, but one point that comes up a lot is “why did they make the main character such a stereotypical emotional teenage girl? This ruins any female messages about female empowerment as she is helped by male friends.” I think this take can absolutely get in the bin. Vivian is written and presented as an emotional teenager because that’s exactly what she is – she’s pissed off and getting out of her comfort zone to do something rather than just taking it on the chin. Does she need help from her friends in times of uncertainty? Yes, but it’s not like she turns into Frodo and needs everyone else carry her to Mt Doom while she absolutely loses it. Absolutely moronic take, and as explained ad nauseam above, Vivian isn’t meant to be presented as a polished hero with all the answers, she’s presented as a normal teenage girl with flaws, like the target demographic of this film.
Outside of this, there a few other minor nitpicks I have. As mentioned, the script can get a little bit cheesy, and there are some ‘complications’ in the film that are resolved within minutes of a problem emerging, which comes off as lazy screenwriting. Do we need fifty-seven scenes of Amy Poehler reminding everyone that she loves ice cream? Probably not. Does Vivian commit multiple crimes in the movie? Yes, with zero repercussions. Should we really stop teaching The Great Gatsby in schools because it was written by a rich white guy? Fuck no, it’s a fantastic book. Is the queen being less powerful than a king in a deck of cards sexist? Bit of a stretch surely, but I understand that this is just the teenage girls quipping, and they might not have covered monarchies in history class yet.
As I’ve just realised this review has reached about 1300 words, I’ll try and wrap up quickly here, but there’s a bunch of good in this movie. The relatively young cast is electric, with Robinson, Pascual-Pena and Hiraga all full of bubbly energy. I’m sure that we’ll see plenty more of Robinson - who is already a well-established actress – in the near future. Finally, one of the most underrated nuggets in the movie is Poehler being able to direct a film that makes a pop culture reference to Mean Girls, which she starred in seventeen years ago.
On that note, go check out Moxie if it sounds like your vibe. Bit cheesy, and can get a bit cringe at times, but I’m sure teens will go wild for this one.
Rating: 6.75/10